How to Play Lexcavator: Word Mines

Welcome to Lexcavator: Word Mines, a cozy word game where you mine letters to form words and uncover treasures. Below are the rules to get you started.

Objective

Create words by selecting adjacent letter tiles on the grid. Depending on the game mode, your goal may be to clear the board, achieve a high score, or mine endlessly for collectibles.

Game Modes

• Puzzle Mode: Clear the board or reach a target score within a limited number of moves or time. Use detonations to remove tiles strategically.
• Explorer Mode: Start with a single tile and expand by forming words. Prospect carefully to maximize your score.
• Infinite Mode: Mine words endlessly to set a personal best. Collect treasures (coins, ore, fossils, diamonds, trophies) and use power-ups like Seismic Shift and Blast Mining.

How to Play

• Select Tiles: Click or tap adjacent tiles (horizontally or vertically) to form a word. Tiles must be reachable (orange-bordered) or edge tiles.
• Submit Words: Form words of 2+ letters and submit them. Valid words remove tiles, score points, and create hollow spaces.
• Hollow Tiles: Removed tiles become hollow and cannot be selected. At least one hollow tile must remain in Infinite mode.
• Undo/Detonate: Undo your last selection or use detonations (in Puzzle mode) to remove selected tiles, incurring a score penalty.

Tile Types

• Normal Tiles: Standard letter tiles with point values (e.g., A=1, Z=10).
• Bonus Tiles:
  • 2L/3L: Double/triple the letter’s point value.
  • 2W/3W: Double/triple the entire word’s score.
• Gem Tiles: Double the score of the next word when collected.
• Seismic Shift Tiles (Infinite mode): Collect to earn a Seismic Shift, which reshapes the board with new tiles.
• Blast Mining Tiles (Infinite mode): Collect to earn a Blast Mining, which fills some hollow tiles with new letters.

Scoring

• Letter Points: Each letter has a base value (e.g., A=1, B=3). Bonus tiles (2L/3L) multiply the letter’s value.
• Word Multipliers: 2W/3W tiles multiply the total word score. Multiple bonuses stack multiplicatively.
• Gem Bonus: A collected gem doubles the next word’s score.
• Detonation Penalty: Detonating tiles deducts their point value from your score.

Power-Ups (Infinite Mode)

• Seismic Shift: Reshapes the board by replacing non-selected, non-hollow tiles with new letters. Earned by collecting Seismic Shift tiles or long words (5+ letters).
• Blast Mining: Fills some hollow tiles with new letter tiles. Earned by collecting Blast Mining tiles or long words (5+ letters).

Collectibles (Infinite Mode)

• Earn treasures based on word length:
  • 5 letters: Coin 🪙
  • 6 letters: Ore Chunk ⛏
  • 7 letters: Fossil 🦴
  • 8 letters: Diamond 💎
  • 10+ letters: Trophy 🏆
• Collectibles also grant Seismic Shift and Blast Mining power-ups (up to a limit of 5 each).

Tips

• Look for bonus tiles (2L, 3L, 2W, 3W) to maximize your score.
• In Infinite mode, aim for long words (5+ letters) to earn collectibles and power-ups.
• Use Seismic Shift to refresh the board when stuck, and Blast Mining to fill hollow spaces.
• In Puzzle mode, use detonations sparingly due to the score penalty.
• Plan your path to keep edge tiles accessible for future words.

Ready to mine some words? Play now!